Netflix Promises Android Streaming App… But Not For All Phones

We knew Netflix was working on bringing streaming to AndroidAndroid thanks to those job listings that all but declared it, but we didn’t know for sure what prevented it from happening sooner. Now we do.

Netflix product development guru Greg Peters blogged yesterday that “the lack of a generic and complete platform security and content protection mechanism available for Android” has prevented the company from expanding to the rapidly growing smartphone platform. In other words, Netflix is unable to implement on all Android devices the digital rights management tools that would satisfy the film studios and other content providers from whom it licenses all its content.

“We are eager to launch on these devices and are disappointed that we haven’t been able to do so already,” he also wrote. He said the same security issues are cause for concern about software piracy on Android.

Since no universal solution exists, Netflix is working with individual hardware manufacturers to support specific Android phones, and the first batch of those will get their apps in early 2011. Peters also said Netflix is working “to develop a standard, platform-wide solution” but he didn’t provide a timeframe for that — probably because so much of what needs to happen there is beyond Netflix’s control.